


What we Leave Behind

by Arowen12



Series: Count to Ten [4]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Aaron shot first, Alternate Ending, Grief/Mourning, Multi, sorry - Freeform, the major character death is alex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:42:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22964086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arowen12/pseuds/Arowen12
Summary: The guns were a hair-trigger the slightest pressure. Maybe Aaron hadn’t meant to shoot his Soulmate, maybe he had. Regardless, he would live with the consequences.An alternate ending to Down For the Count.
Relationships: Alexander Hamilton/Elizabeth "Eliza" Schuyler
Series: Count to Ten [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1633753
Comments: 24
Kudos: 124





	What we Leave Behind

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone, I'm here with the fourth part in this series and I'm going to start by saying I'm sorry. But like this had to be written for a few reasons. I have a fifth part planned based on a reincarnation idea but for it to work we kind of needed the canon ending. A lot of the unresolved stuff from previous parts will be addressed there. For now, I'm sorry, read on!

X

He aims his pistol at the sky.

“Wait!”

I strike him right between his ribs.

I walk towards him but I am ushered away

They row him back across the Hudson

I get a drink

Aaron sits in a shadowed part of the bar and prays it is enough as he downs what might be his second but could also possibly be his fourth drink of the night. He doesn’t care not when all he can see is Hamilton’s surprised eyes and the mark, Aaron’s words on Alexander’s wrist dark in the early morning sunlight.

God.

Why hadn’t Hamilton shot him? Burr is the one that should be on his deathbed, not Alexander, not Hamilton so alive with life who has a whole family, a wife, a legacy. Burr has his daughter, and he loves Theodosia, more than perhaps anything in the world, but she is an adult she would be fine if he passed. Heartbroken but fine. What legacy does Aaron have but the one now resting on his shoulders by his own hand. But it isn’t Aaron lying on his death bed its Alexander and he can picture it and he hates it, the image of Hamilton lifeless and cold when he has _always_ been the opposite.

Death doesn’t discriminate, it takes and it takes.

Maybe Death does discriminate against him and Alexander. Their lives have been wrought by Death’s hands, their parents, Soulmates, family, friends, and in the end, it took Alexander too. Perhaps that’s all Aaron has ever been destined for, the death of those around him.

The guns were a hair-trigger the slightest pressure. Maybe Aaron hadn’t meant to shoot his Soulmate, maybe he had. Regardless, he would live with the consequences.

Someone sits at his table. Aaron glances up and blinks in the bleary light at Jefferson whose eyes are dark, darker than Aaron has seen them before except for one occasion which he doesn’t dwell on. Jefferson is silent staring at Aaron for a long moment before he states, “Your own soulmate. Our soulmate.”

Aaron recoils like he’s been physically struck, he may as well have. He can feel the bullet biting into his chest, the pain, the fever sweeping through Alexander’s body, the darkness clawing at the edges of his vision. He checked as soon as their guns fired and the wound exploded into being but his chest is unmarred.

“I wasn’t aware you shared a mark.”

Aaron replies it’s an insulting suggestion that Jefferson didn’t care for Hamilton and he takes it as such. Jefferson bristles and glares at Aaron for a long moment before he says, “New Jersey and New York are both trying to convict you.”

“Good.”

Aaron replies and thinks the death penalty would be a nice way to end the evening if it meant he didn’t have to feel Alexander’s last breaths, if he didn’t have to deal with the consequences. God, he wants to hate Alexander for shooting at the sky. With that one bullet he is out, no more death, no more suffering. But Aaron? He’s been consigned to a living Hell, one in which the sin of killing Alexander Hamilton will forever stain his soul.

“I’m not surprised he didn’t shoot.”

Jefferson says conversationally and when Aaron looks up at the man, he seems older, the lines of his face weathered and deeper. They are all older, Alexander across from him had hair nearly all grey and those stupid glasses.

“He’s already lost four of his soul mates and those weren’t even matching ones.”

“Enough.”

Aaron grounds out rubbing away the tears that are burning his eyes he can feel Alexander struggling for breath can feel even with the distance forgiveness and God Aaron is the last person who deserves forgiveness.

Jefferson studies him for a long moment before his expression clears and he says quietly, “Of course you already know what I’m going to say. You’ve destroyed yourself Burr.”

(Sometimes the greatest soulmates are the greatest enemies. Is this how he will be known?)

Alexander Hamilton breathes his last and Aaron grasps at his chest and the tears are heavy and hot on his cheeks as he lets his head fall. Losing Theodosia was like loosing the roots which grounded him to the Earth. Losing Hamilton, one of his dearest friends who he has lived with for so long is like losing himself completely.

An arm wraps around his shoulder and Aaron glances at Jefferson who is frowning but his eyes are soft and Aaron lets the grief consume him.

They say Angelica and Eliza

Were both at his side when he died

Angelica cannot help the heavy set of her face as she perches at the edge of her seat holding Alexander’s hand, Eliza is holding his other hand tears dripping silently onto the grey of her dress, she had just started to phase out her mourning clothes and now here they are again.

Again.

Angelica sucks in a ragged breath her fingers tight around Alexander’s cold ones, he should never be cold, Alexander is like warmth personified. He is pale now, the only sound his laboured breathing, and his eyes are closed. She watches the faint rise of his chest and can’t think about what is going to happen.

Hasn’t she lost enough? Haven’t they all? First her husband, then her nephew, her sister, and now her brother.

She thinks instead of him writing furiously blood staining his bandages as he adjusts his will, pens letters to friends with apologies and pleas to care for his wife and children; there is even one for Aaron Burr.

Just the thought of his name stirs a deep anger in her chest, something boiling like the depths of the Earth and she wants to take Alexander’s pistols and challenge the man to a duel and shoot first. But she thinks with a vindictive sort of pleasure that Burr will get what he deserves in the end. After all, he has a matching soul mark with Alexander, just as Eliza can, that man wherever he is, feels Alexander dying.

Alexander forgave him.

Angelica returns her attention to Alexander the children have already said goodbye and she spares a thought for her namesake who still hasn’t recovered from Philip’s death. What are they supposed to do now? She wonders.

Alexander has always been so alive an inevitability no matter how one looked at it. He has been the sun which they all revolved around helplessly drawn into gravity and kept by his warmth and life. Maybe the fact that he is burning out rather than fading away makes sense but Angelica can’t accept it she wants to see Alexander grow old, wants him to hold his grandchildren, and write and complain of arthritis.

He had said, “Even if I survive this is no way to live.”

Confined to bed for the rest of his life? Could she imagine Alexander living like that? No. Never.

He stirs on the bed and they both jump to attention as he opens his eyes, they are bleary and dull with pain nothing like that Winter’s Ball so long ago. He stares first at Angelica and weakly squeezes her fingers with a soft smile, he looks at peace. Then he looks to Eliza and she starts sobbing again, Angelica reaches out and grasps Eliza’s hand forming a strange triangle.

“Take your time my love.”

Alexander whispers his strong voice hoarse and barely above a whisper. He settles into the pillows and with a final exhale his chest stills. Angelica cannot help the scream that breaks free from her throat and she can hear Eliza’s wailing as she grasps his cold hand.

Gone. Their dear Alexander gone.

Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?

Hercules hears about it in the paper first, early in the morning the headline seems to scream at him, “Former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton killed by Vice President Aaron Burr in a duel.”

He drops the paper and thinks distantly that it is a bad dream. That he should wake any moment and Alexander will be alive and around any day now so that Hercules can ply him with food and try to convince him that shade of green should be saved for special occasions.

His wife bustles into the kitchen and she sees Hercules and calls his name before she picks up the newspaper. She drops it with a soft, “Oh,” and wraps her arms around him. It is the feeling of her tears on his shoulder that make the newspaper headline real. Hercules tucks his head into his wife’s shoulder and lets the tears fall as he thinks of Alexander.

Thinks of Alexander young and barely nineteen talking long into the hours of the night with him, about being immigrants and his fears the future. Thinks of Alexander during the war so alive and writing as if the words were ordained by whatever God above there is. After the war and late nights drinking together and thinking of Lafayette and John, of their fallen comrades immortalized now on the streets around them.

He will never again hear the way Alexander slips into French when he is truly excited thinking that everyone can keep up. Won’t see the way his friend’s eyes light up when his wife places food on the table or hear his high and contagious laughter. All that is left are his words, printed into being and now the only piece of Alexander left.

Not the only.

Hercules pulls back from his wife and wipes at his eyes Alexander has left behind his wife (his Soulmate God he can’t imagine) and their children (seven children) she has no means of income and Alexander was never a wealthy man. There will be costs for their schooling, clothing, their whole futures and if Alexander cannot be there than Hercules will aid in filling the role of his friend as much as possible.

The newspaper catches his eye once more and Hercules frowns at the name Aaron Burr; Alexander’s first friend. He wants to hate Burr, truly for taking Alexander away from them all. But he has seen the slander the papers published from each other, knows that Aaron Burr was one of Alexander’s Soulmates, one who matched if the words on his wrist were any indication. He couldn’t imagine killing his own Soulmate, feeling his wife die knowing he did it.

Burr will pay for it all on his own.

“There’s a letter… from Alexander.”

His wife says softly and he takes the proffered envelope with gentle hands and opens it. Alexander’s writing sprawls across the page shaky with ink blots and what might be blood in the corner. Hercules’ eyes sting with tears as he reads over Alexander’s words, thanking him for being his friend and caring for him, begging him to take care of his wife and children, and finally a goodbye to one of his Soulmates.

Hercules tucks the letters away and turns to his wife and says, “I think Mrs. Hamilton could use one of your famous pies.”

“Yes, she could, and didn’t young Alex Jr. just go through a growth spurt?”

Hercules nods at his wife’s watery smile and turns towards his workshop tucking Alexander’s letter against his breast. There will be time to mourn later but for now he has a duty to his departed friend.

Every other founding father’s story gets told

Every other founding father gets to grow old

“It’s quieter without him around.”

James comments glancing out the window at the streets below bustling with life, nothing stops New York city, not even tragedy and death. Thomas nods signing a few sheets of paper with a grim expression he replies, “Even without him in office he was still loud.”

“Found an inane reason to drop by at least once a week.”

James says with the touch of a wry smile but it falls flat with the grief in his eyes. Thomas notices, he always notices and rises from his desk, its an impressive desk as is due course for the President but Thomas is past caring.

Resting his fingers over the words on James’ wrist, his words Thomas comments, “I shouldn’t even be broken up about it, I hated him.”

“He was our Soulmate Thomas even if we didn’t have a match. And besides don’t lie you liked arguing with him.”

The use of past tense hurts and Thomas can’t console the idea of Alexander Hamilton, relentless, so very _alive_ just not. It sounds wrong, incorrigible, like a facet of the universe has gone wrong somehow.

“I did. You miss him too.”

Thomas says and James nods and curls his fingers’ over Thomas’ as he replies, “Of course. He sent me a letter two days ago with a draft for a bill he thought I should propose.”

“Really?”

Thomas asks with a tilt of his head and James laughs, that deep sound and nods as he continues, “Yes, something to do with the banks again.”

He wants to make a witty retort maybe something about how Hamilton never rests but the statement isn’t quite true; not anymore. He supposes it’s apt that Hamilton get’s his final rest before all of them but a part of him wants desperately to argue with Hamilton, two crotchety old men. It’s impossible.

“What about Burr?”

James asks hesitantly eyes staring into the distance as if he could find Burr in the streets of New York. Thomas sighs, isn’t that the question, what about Burr? He thinks of the seedy bar of the tears collecting in the man’s eyes, the raw open grief as Hamilton breathed his last.

“Let him run. He’ll be caught eventually, there will be a trial, he’ll be acquitted because the populace can’t handle the idea of their Vice President being a murderer.”

“That’s it?”

James asks and he looks genuinely angry which is an almost unfamiliar expression, James rarely gets angry. Thomas sighs tired with the weight of the Presidency on his shoulders, for the first time he feels as if he truly understands Washington.

“Burr’s already suffering enough we don’t need to make a spectacle out of it unless he tries to.”

Thomas comments and there’s something vitriolic in his chest that he can’t quite keep out of his voice. That would probably be what Burr would want, a nice clean execution and it would all be over. But Burr has to live with the consequences as they all do.

“Have you spoken to Mrs. Hamilton yet?”

“No.”

Thomas replies the word short and choppy on his tongue. It’s easier to think of Hamilton as a singular entity confined to the political battleground rather than a man with a family, a family he has left behind. Why did he have to aim at the sky?

James gives him a reproachful look and Thomas raises his hands in front of his chest as he replies, “I will, right now she needs the comfort of friends and family. Of which I am neither.”

“What has the world come to?”

James asks quietly and Thomas thinks of Aaron Burr who always waits and Alexander Hamilton who never hesitated. It’s as if the world’s turned upside down.

And when you’re gone who remembers your name?

Adrienne presses the letter into his hand with a frown creasing her expression, they are both older; worn. Their revolution has not been kind to them but Gilbert pushes aside the dark thoughts which run rampant, the faces of so many he knew scattered to the wind or at the mercy of the Guillotine.

He opens the envelope and is surprised to find two letters enclosed inside. The first is from Eliza Hamilton, and the second from his dear Alexander he is tempted to read Alexander’s letter first but there is something heavy resting on his chest and the air seems suddenly colder.

He unfolds Eliza’s letter and reads the first line the one that states among other things, “Alexander passed due to injuries from a duel.”

The paper drops from his numb fingers and Gilbert is certain it must be some kind of practical joke but there is nothing to suggest such a thing. He picks the paper up once more feeling the distance between himself and his dearly beloved America once more as he scans the letters.

Gilbert feels as if isn’t even him reading the words which detail how Alexander was killed by Aaron Burr. By Burr of all people! One of Alexander’s first friends, a man who always waited. The circumstances are unclear in the letter but Gilbert cannot help but wonder how such things came to pass that Burr would shoot Alexander.

Alexander who aimed at the sky rather than shoot his own Soulmate.

Anger bursts hot and heavy in his chest as he passes Eliza’s letter to Adrienne and hesitantly picks up Alexander’s letter; it is not the usual voluminous package Gilbert has become familiar with. When sending anything across the sea is expensive Alexander still always managed to find the funds to impart everything to him.

It still feels unreal, impossible that Alexander is just _gone_ a fire snuffed too suddenly. With shaking hands Gilbert picks up Alexander’s last words to him, a part of him wants to tuck them aside so that he doesn’t have to confront the reality that is a world without Alexander but he forces himself to open it just as desperate to hear what Alexander wished to confess.

The pages are crammed with Alexander’s cramped and quick handwriting dotted with ink, it is filled from top to bottom and Gilbert trails his fingers carefully over the swirl of his own name. The words seem to spring off the page echoing inside his head in Alexander’s voice even though it has been many years since last they spoke.

It is a goodbye, an apology that they couldn’t meet again, a wish that perhaps they might meet in another life, finally finishing with what he supposes Alexander meant to be comforting that he will be with John again, with all those they have lost. Gilbert watches as his own tears dot the page and he sets it on the table with a shaky exhale and feels Adrienne wrap her arms around his shoulders.

She doesn’t say anything but he can’t help but think of returning to France from America all those years ago and her words. He should have listened, or even convinced Alexander to take a break and travel to France, he wants to believe he could have prevented this somehow. Anything but this. Still, there is no changing the past, Alexander is gone and they will all have to move on.

He doesn’t want to move on.

Gilbert doubts he could learn to live without Alexander’s words but he can learn to act like he has. Acting is not so hard after all.

He glances out the window of their home and thinks of Alexander pressing a kiss to his lips, eyes alight with the taste of victory. Carefully Gilbert closes the letter and turns to his wife she presses a kiss to his cheek and lets his tears stain her shoulder.

Who keeps your flame?

Who tells your story?

She feels the very moment he breathes his last, the gaping wound that opens in her chest right where the bullet struck. It is as if the sun has disappeared from the sky and taken with it the warmth of the world leaving only cold unfailing darkness. She feels utterly alone, utterly destroyed; she feels like nothing.

They have to drag her away from his body.

The children are confused, the younger ones at least but Eliza feels numb as Angelica wraps an arm around her shoulders and helps her cradle Philip Jr, who stares up at her with Alexander’s eyes. She feels drowned and yet dried out as if all that had made her Eliza has been pulled from her through her tears and grief.

Late at night she sits in his office and stares at the piles of paper surrounding her, God he always writes like he’s running out of time, doesn’t he? There is so much, Eliza doubts she will be able to sort through it all on her own especially with Alexander’s absurd organization system; the one only he could figure out.

It hurts to think of him in the past tense and she hopes vindictively that Burr, wherever he is, feels the same pain.

She has always been a forgiving woman but the act of killing one’s own Soulmate is unforgiveable.

The door creaks open and Eliza glances up from a letter, it is one of the ones Alexander had penned to Peggy but had never sent after her death, she knows there is a chest somewhere full of letters sent to his departed Soulmates. Should she start writing letters now?

The one in her hands is unfinished and she is reminded again that Alexander had planned to come back, he hadn’t planned to die. After all, why would Burr, his Soulmate, his first friend, shoot him? She feels a bitter laugh swell in her throat and glances at her son, it is Alex Jr.

Her son stands hesitantly in the doorway for a long moment before she opens her arms and he crashes into her, young but old enough to understand that their father will never be coming home again. God what is she supposed to do without Alexander? He has never been a rock, too flighty and akin to the wind for that but still he was the pleasant wind of a summer’s day bringing relief from the heat, he was the furious winds that protected her and their family, he was the Hurricane itself.

As she cradles her son to her chest Eliza is filled with a deep guilt, she has been a horrible mother drowning in her own grief while ignoring her children. She knows she should be taking care of them and yet finds that to even leave her bed, her bed which once held two people but now only one, is immensely difficult. Angelica tells her not to blame herself but she cannot help but feel ashamed of herself as she rocks Alex Jr. gently back and forth.

Eliza glances at the stack of papers around her and wants to curse, she wants to scream, cry, shout, anything if it would bring Alexander back. How could he? How could he leave her alone?

She isn’t alone though. Eliza reminds herself thinking of Hercules Mulligan placing a trunk full of clothing on the floor and pressing a pie into her hands before sweeping her into a hug, of Lafayette and Adrienne’s letter which brought tears to her eyes with the stories Lafayette imparted (the kind that should not be pressed to paper). So many people who were touched by Alexander have donated money for her children, have visited and laughed with her with tears in their eyes about the unstoppable force that was Alexander.

Even Jefferson and Madison stopped by to offer condolences. She had been ready to be offended but Jefferson, Thomas he insisted, had told her softly that he truly did understood having lost his wife Martha some years prior. While they held no matching marks with Alexander, she gathered the sense they had still cared deeply for Alexander.

Eliza glances helplessly down at her son and wonders what she is supposed to do now. What would Alex do, she wonders, if he had more time?

It was always about legacy with him. She glances around the room surrounded by his legacy, his words, she glances down at the child in her lap another piece of Alexander’s legacy and thinks suddenly and deeply that she wants her husband, the man who loved so deeply as to have ten Soulmates, to be remembered, for all his flaws and faults, for his virtues and accomplishments.

She has so much work to do.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for reading! I had a lot of fun thinking about everyone's reactions to grief and also just the aftermath of the duel. For all, we know the longer historical details we step away from the characters in Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story. Anyways be sure to check out the next part when it is up and comments are always super appreciated thanks!


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